The Successor Ch. 15 (My Hero Academia) (Patreon)

A/N: Izuku introduces himself~

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In the end, Izuku makes his initial choice primarily on looks. That might sound shallow, but it’s not about their attractiveness. In fact, he’d argue that all of the girls in his class are relatively attractive, though he still doesn’t know what Toru actually looks like. At the same time, none of the girls in his class can truly, fully hold a candle to someone like say, Mirko quite yet. Their teacher is just super fucking hot in every way.

This is all to say, when he makes his choice primarily on looks, its not based upon beauty, but just… how wild some of them look. And out of all his options, there’s no denying that Mina Ashido and Kyoka Jiro stand out the most, as a pair.

Mina, of course, is the most in your face about it, through no fault of her own. The young woman quite literally looks like a space alien, thanks to her Mutant-type Quirk. Or Izuku thinks he’s heard that they’ve started moving away from slightly hurtful words like mutant these days and have taken to calling these sorts of Quirks ‘Heteromorphic’ or something.

Well, there are plenty of Heteromorphic Quirks in Class 1-A. More than that, both Mina and Kyoka have Heteromorphic Quirks. But of all the girls in Class 1-A, Mina’s physiology is definitely the wildest. Pink skin covers her from head to toe, along with short, fluffy, unruly pink hair that’s… almost not hair-like in nature. She also has somewhat square-shaped eyes, with black instead of white and yellow pupils on top of noticeably long eyelashes below and around the sides of those eyes.

To top it all off, she has a pair of thin pale yellow horns protruding from her head, looking almost like a pair of alien eye stalks, or something. They just don’t actually have eyes on them. But yeah, all of that put together… she certainly comes across as very space alien-y, or so Izuku privately thinks anyways.

Of course, she’s also incredibly physically fit, with an athletic and toned body. Healthy thighs, healthy figure on a medium-ish height… yeah, she’d give Momo a run for her money in terms of body maturity, if not for the completely wild alien-look overshadowing her physicality a fair bit.

In comparison, Kyoka is practically tame in comparison. A petite, fair-skinned build with a much slenderer build than her pink-skinned friend, she has almost lazy-looking black eyes, with short dark purple hair. Her Mutant-type Quirk, however, still does manifest itself in a somewhat inhuman way. Specifically, her most prominent and noticeable features are the flexible plug-like fleshy earphone jacks dangling off of each of her earlobes at the end of two long cords.

Those flesh-toned earphone jacks are part of her Quirk, Izuku knows that quite well, and from what he’s seen so far of them, they can also act as extra limbs. She can control them at will, and they’ve so far proven to be quite flexible, as well as able to lengthen or protract as necessary for her purposes.

Yes, in terms of Quirks, Mina and Kyoka are certainly interesting to someone like… well, like him. Mina’s Quirk, Acid, allows her to produce corrosive liquid from any part of her body at any time. It’s not the kind of Quirk most people would be happy with, and yet… Mina made it work. More than making it work, she didn’t let it get her down, and that interested Izuku, because it meant there was an incredibly intelligent mind behind that pretty face of hers.

So many people would just… give up in the face of such a Quirk. They’d grow morose and depressed, telling themselves that their Quirk made it impossible for them to live a normal life, that they would never find love, or happiness, or work with such a needlessly destructive Quirk. But Mina? Mina had taken her Quirk and turned it into a strength, as all driven people would.

Meanwhile, Kyoka’s Quirk, Earphone Jack, was absolutely fascinating. They didn’t just plug into electronics like one might think, they could plug into ANYTHING, and in turn the purple-haired girl could channel the sound of her heartbeat through them in the form of a violent sort of vibration attack. Not only that, but her Quirk gave her an enhanced sense of hearing.

And Kyoka, for all that her attitude made her seem somewhat lazy or at least lackadaisical, was absolutely no slouch either. She might have acted a certain way that could largely be described as unenthusiastic from an outside perspective, but Izuku knew for a fact that she’d gone out of her way to train her earphone jacks up until they could pierce literal STONE!

How did he know so much about both girls and their Quirks, you might ask? Well first of all, Izuku would wonder who this ‘you’ was who was asking such questions about him, because he’d need to decide if they needed to be… taken care of. But second of all… it was practically his job and hobby all wrapped up in one! Quirks had always fascinated Izuku Midoriya, and if there was one thing he liked to do, it was figure out what made them tick.

On top of that, these were the people he’d be spending the next several years with as they all learned how to be Pro Heroes and eventually graduated from UA together. So, in that regard, it wasn’t creepy or stalkerish that he’d developed dossiers on every single one of his classmates. No, it was simply… prudent behavior. Or something.

Either way, having made his choice, Izuku walks up to Mina and Kyoka at lunch time. For a moment, he considers using any number of Quirks to make sure the interaction goes his way… but at the last second, he decides to keep it simple and rely solely on the reputation he’d made for himself at the Quirk Apprehension Test.

If that wasn’t enough, well, this would be a good learning experience he supposed, and he’d know better next time.

“Hey! You guys mind if I eat with you?”

Striding up to the two young women with a bright smile on his face, he watches both of their reactions closely. They both startle in their own ways, but it’s what they do after they get over their initial surprise that Izuku finds more intriguing. Mina’s eyes light up and she brightens as she gives him a toothy grin in response. Kyoka, on the other hand, flushes a fair bit and looks away. Embarrassed? A girl like her? How… interesting.

“Oho! Number One has deigned to grace US with his presence! Ain’t that a treat, eh Kyoka?”

Nudging her friend, Mina snickers to show she’s just teasing. But Kyoka just scowls a bit.

“Hmph. You can if you want. No one’s stopping you.”

Even Mina seems to sense something to the other girl at that point. From what Izuku knew, they hadn’t actually known each other before coming to UA, which meant they were quite new friends indeed. Still, they’d been drawn together all the same, despite having what one might call clashing personalities. Personally, Izuku felt like they worked well together, like a pair of different puzzle pieces nevertheless fitting together. Opposites attract, and all that.

Suddenly worried that she’s upset her new friend, Mina turns a little sheepish, rubbing a hand through the back of her head and letting out a little nervous laugh.

“H-Heh, yeah. Pull up a chair, o-or something!”

Considering they weren’t at a table but sitting nearby on the edge of a risen planter’s stone wall, Izuku couldn’t very well ‘pull up a chair’. Instead, he could only move to sit next to one of them. For the briefest of moments, he DOES consider sitting next to Kyoka, just to mess with her a bit more and get to the bottom of her current emotions regarding him. But… he doesn’t want to push too hard, and so in the end, he chooses to sit next to Mina instead.

Now, the two girls were sat far enough apart from each other that he COULD have sat in the middle of them, but that had seemed like an even worse idea. It’s only when he sits down right next to Mina, not too close but a few inches closer to her than Kyoka was sitting, that he realizes his faux pas and why they might have been so far apart.

Mina looks downright surprised at his willingness to be in such proximity to her. And it makes sense, really… her Quirk makes physical contact with the pink-skinned girl a somewhat dangerous prospect, at least for the uninitiated. For Izuku, who knew just how long and hard Mina Ashido had trained her Acid Quirk, specifically for the purposes of both control and to increase her own skin’s durability, it wasn’t a concern. He didn’t expect her to lose control randomly in the middle of lunch after all, so he really wasn’t worried about her potentially hurting him.

This, it would seem, is a bit of a shock to young Mina, who blinks owlishly as she glances at him while he begins taking bites of his sandwich.

“You… uh… heh, you sure you don’t want to sit next to Kyoka?”

Izuku blinks, as Mina goes from confused and a little floored, to grinning cheesily halfway through that statement.

“Mina!”

Kyoka’s protest causes the pink-skinned young woman to cackle, tossing her head back and laughing as her shoulders shake. Raising an eyebrow, Izuku begins to get a better idea of what’s going on here, even as he continues chowing down on his sandwich in silence. Kyoka Jiro… has a crush on him. Perhaps not much of one, and she would definitely disagree if he accused her outright, but clearly something she’d done or said in regard to him had caught Mina’s eye.

If nothing else, Mina thought Kyoka had a crush on him. Frankly, based on how the other girl had reacted to his presence so far, Izuku had to agree. Kyoka had it bad. He’d sort of shown off the other day, so it made sense. He’d gone all out, and made quite the splash, and while this meant that some of Class 1-A were now sizing him up as a rival to constantly compare themselves to, that wasn’t quite what ALL of his fellow students were like.

Certainly, as much as Mina and Kyoka were a pair of go-getters and hard workers when it came to training their Quirks, they weren’t trying to be the very best, which left room for them to admire him and his place atop the mountain, so to speak.

Well…

“I would have sat next to Kyoka… but I didn’t want to bug her too much. I saw what she did to Denki and Mineta when they were being annoying.”

His teasing tone is meant by a flush from Kyoka and a blink from Mina. Then, the former is ducking her head in embarrassment, while the latter once again tosses her head back to let out another cackle.

“Hear that, Kyoka? Even Number One is scared of ya! Hah!”

Raising his brow at that, Izuku hums and takes another bite of his sandwich. When he’s done swallowing, he asks the obvious.

“Why do you call me that?”

“Huh? Number One? Well obviously, you’re the best in class right now. First Place! What else would I call you?”

Smiling a friendly smile, Izuku shrugs.

“You can call me Izuku, if you prefer.”

Mina blinks, going still for a moment in the face of his earnest sincerity. Izuku can immediately tell that that was the right move. Heh, man who needed all those Social Quirks? He was doing just fine without them! The pink-skinned young woman might have been blushing for all he knew, what with that skin color. She certainly looks floored by his offer.

“… Snrk.”

The noise, a badly concealed snort of amusement, comes not from Izuku or Mina… but past Mina, from one Kyoka Jiro. The petite purple-haired girl has a smile on her face, and it’s quite a nice smile, as she looks upon the scene Izuku has created, of how he’s managed to blindside Mina, and finds something most enjoyable about it, apparently.

“Are you… are you laughing at me, Kyoka?!”

Mina can’t help the thread of amusement in her voice, even as she tries to feign being outraged. She even goes so far as to cross her arms over her chest and mock glare at the other girl. Kyoka, meanwhile, settles into a more casual, relaxed pose and a softer, less concerned smile and shrugs.

“I’m laughing with you, Mina, not at you.”

“But I’m not laughing! You-!”

Both Izuku and Kyoka laugh at that, and in the face of their amusement, Mina is soon grinning and snickering at her own expense right along with them. In the end, Kyoka had made it the truth, in a roundabout way. They all were laughing with each other. Of course, as soon as their laughter begins to die down again, Izuku goes for the kill, glancing past Mina and making eye contact with Kyoka before she can look away.

“You can call me Izuku too, if you prefer.”

Kyoka’s reaction is even more blatant than Mina’s, with her blushing deeply and freezing in place like a deer caught in headlights, until Mina’s teasing laughter and finger pointed in her face finally lets her recover. Taking a playful bite at Mina’s finger that doesn’t quite connect, Kyoka just shakes her head and sighs.

From there, lunch continues, the ice broken and the three of them chatting sometimes, sitting in companionable silence and chewing their food at others. The two girls really are a nice pair, and Izuku is glad he chose to come over here.

The only question is… does he want to push for more this fast, or is he happy with just this much of a connection, for now? Kyoka is the one with the obvious crush on him that he COULD leverage, if he decided to turn on the charm, so to speak. But Mina… Mina too, is making obvious signs of attraction towards him.

Of course, he could go all out… and try to get both of them at once. If he doesn’t, if he chooses just one, he might be risking alienating the other. Mina seemed almost eager to set him and Kyoka up at the start, but she’s not doing nearly as much teasing about that anymore. Not as much as she’s subtly flirting with him instead now. Kyoka, meanwhile, keeps playing with her jacks, clearly unsure what to really do or say beyond the small talk they’ve made so far.

Pursue one of them? Pursue both of them? Or keep things platonic for now?